by trixie delicious

Mr Black & Mme Ochre: Camilla’s characters meet Karin’s hand thrown stoneware.

Illustrator Camilla Engman and ceramicist Karin Eriksson collaborate on a series of small plates, platters, bowls and robust mugs. The exhibition Mr Black & Mme Ochre is at manos - Överjärva Gård in Stockholm - 24 April – 7 June 2008. available for purchase online here.

The work is absolutely gorgeous - congratulations!

Indian Ring Toss game - American Folk toy. They say The Indian Ring Toss game was created by the Indians to teach the children how to spear fish. When all the rings line up just so, the fish appears through the holes and thats the moment to spear him. [from etsy seller SullivanToyCo]

Wood Spinning Top Toy - handmade wooden spinning top - really lovely [by etsy seller SDIWoodworking]

making a handmade Go set at this flickr set by eshm

Before and after

The first step in this project is to find a suitable table. Check the size with suit the user and make sure it has a few drawers or doors. In this case, we used a small table with long legs, and multiple drawers. We don’t have a ton of space, so we wanted to go small. The key to this project is working with the piece you have. Figure out how to use the lines and details of the piece to your advantage.

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Paula from poeira da estrada is a portuguese ceramic student. She makes handmade clothes, bags, ceramic pieces… In addition she likes the contrasts in textures and mixing materials. Her works is simply beautiful.

Paula, de poeira da estrada, es un estudiante portuguesa de cerámica. Hace ropa a mano, bolsos y piezas de barro; además le gustan los contrastes en texturas y mezclar materiales. Sus trabajos son sencillos y bellos.

Her blog Bum Crane. Pru is located in QLD Australia.

I am a farm animal..hear me roar!

These are the next guys on the production front.They’re each made using six two piece moulds and one single mould which are all grafted together to make these little bird/pig fellows. As all seems to be holding, although not yet completely dry, I’ll push on with the herd. Colour and scrafito/text etc are yet to be added …which will be made up of hog fodder fables or something along those lines.

Coe and Waito

porcelain jellyfish

Spruce cones

Shannon Garson is a potter living in Queensland, Australia. She makes porcelain pots with drawn garden life upon them. The purpose of these pots is to create a small dorway into a different world as people go about their everyday lives, having cups of tea, washing dishes, eating cakes.

Image: Nests - Series one - The delicate ‘Nests - Series one’ vessels are pared back, porcelain bowls with a matt surface that are etched with drawings of twigs and sticks to form a series of tactile ‘birds nests’.

When I went to the judging for the shortlist one of the judges asked me” if I had considered getting my works manufactured in China.” At the time I was so shocked I just said that was not where I saw my practice going but what I really meant was I think it is unethical to get your work manufactured in another country simply because the people there will work for very low wages. It is also environmentally and socially unsustainable to ship work across the world and back again. … Manufacturing my work in the community I live in strengthens the both the community and the artist. I buy my clay from a local business and, should I ever become prosperous enough I will be able to employ local people. I think it is really important for artists to manufacture within their communities, it leads to a greater understanding of what artists do and makes a rich, textured community where productivity leads directly to local products and local profits.

Rae Dunn is a California/San Francisco artist. She is inspired by simple shapes and organic forms.

Katie Parker porcelain and cut paper

“Deers and Deers” 16 porcelain tiles with silkscreened china paint, enamel, and underglaze. Background - white laser cut vinyl scrolls. Size 65″ x 34″. 2007.

Whitney Smith

My design sense is primarily informed by my obsession with flowers and other forms found in nature. I have painted and drawn since I was a small child, and many of my designs are influenced by other painters and 2-D artists. I am also strongly influenced by Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement of the 19th early 20th Century. I like the look and feel of old things and antiques, and my glaze choices have a certain look that reminds people of an different era.

I’ve been asking myself some serious questions about the direction my career has taken in the last year. … Most people passing by or stopping in my booth don’t identify me as “Whitney Smith” or understand that what they are looking at is something I make with my hands. My pottery is nothing more than merchandise– albeit beautiful merch, but nothing more than that. …

Mel Robson is a ceramic artist based in Brisbane, Australia. She makes functional and non-functional objects out of porcelain. She is obsessed by road maps, recipes, sewing patterns and handwriting. Really obsessed.

Here’s a (teeny tiny barely visible) little sneak peak of the work (above), which is being permanently installed at the new Southbank Institute of TAFE Library. It’s made up of 15 very fine black and white porcelain vessels. The imagery on them is drawn from/inspired by the history of the site and the surrounding environment. …

Musing about mud: Carol Epp - A ceramic artist in Saskatoon, Canada. She makes two distinct bodies of work, one sculptural the other functional. She is interested in material culture, politics, ethics and methodologies of representation in art.

A lot of my figurative pieces in the past had dealt with violence and inequality, but for these ones I decided to make a more direct statement about the war. … What I wanted to discuss though was the inequality of the media representation of the dead count, the North Amercian or eurocentric overendulgence and valuing of one soldier loss over the countless Iraqi civilian and military loss, the political game at play which brings nations into the situation regardless of the views and stance of the people in their so-called democratic societies, and the fate of all those injured in battle, whether they be army personal or innocent civilians and the uncertain future that they face.

Greenwich House Pottery’s annual benefit sale, Made in Clay, March 29th-April 28th. 16 Jones Street New York, NY 10014-4132

Work for sale includes pieces by renowned studio potters from across the country. All sales benefit Greenwich House Pottery’s educational and outreach programs.

Image: Cantaloupe, Porcelain, 2006, Stacy Cushman

Image: Vine Cups, 2006, Josephine Burr

Each ‘leftover’ spoon is unique designed by Mara Skujeniece via bloesem.

The work of Miquel Barceló in the Mallorca´s Cathedral is amazing. The artist has covered the entire chapel with tarracotta, creating a kind of second skin, and decorated it with images related to the dividing of the breads and fishes to feed the five thousand.

Miquel Barceló ha realizado una obra única y singular en la Catedral de Palma de Mallorca. Ha recubierto toda la capilla de terracota como si fuera una segunda piel y la ha decorado con motivos relacionados con la multiplicación de los panes y los peces. Más de cinco años ha estado trabajando en ella, realizada totalmente a mano, el resultado es excepcional.

Designboom and ‘MACEF international home show’ are looking for new ceramic tableware designs for their design competition Ceramics for breakfast. Participation is open to applicants from every country in the world, to professionals, students, and design-enthusiasts.

Above are two cups not related to this competition - but perhaps they could be? They’re by Elizabeth Robinson.

An Exhibition by me and my porcelain artist friend Amanda.

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about how to DIY an exhibition. Well now that my exhibition has been and gone I can relax enough to post some pics of it and run through a few issues we had.

The exhibition, as you can see, is quite minimal, sparse even. Amanda’s work is cast porcelain. She uses found objects, mostly discarded toys and blow up objects to make the molds from. She then creates these one off pieces that are a playful and sometimes dark look at childhood. The hanger is hand carved porcelain and is one of my favourite things. My images are rather curious portraits with gelled out colour and lighting, where you can get a sense of that strange kid world.

One of the issues on the day that Amanda and I had was the use of the space. We found out that we both had totally different ideas in our head of how we were going to use the space and had not actually discussed this fully before hand. In the end we needed a mediator to be able co-ordinate our different ideas. It worked out really well, I think…